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July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

ncdc.noaa.gov

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Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#101

Post by rnovak »

cryptoz wrote: post #83
rnovak wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wait a second. The OP was comparing "aftcasting" TO "forecasting" 2-3 days in advance, and that's what my statement was based on. If your 2-3 day forecasting is off by 5-6 degrees (celcius), why would your "aftcasting" forecast for 200 years ago be any more accurate if it is "just as good" as a 2-3 day forecast? That means I would expect an error of 5-6 degrees, same as a 2-3 day forecast edit: formatting

If everyone is nitpicking that part of my comment, it would be worth noting that I was paraphrasing from the paper I linked. > For the beginning of the twentieth century, the errors of such upper-air circulation maps over the Northern Hemisphere in winter would be comparable to the 2–3-day errors of modern weather forecasts. Might be worth reading the abstract / full paper if you're interested in the topic.

what's the actual error bound on both forecasts and aftcasts?

The article this discussion is linked to is claiming "1.46°F (0.81°C)" variance over recorded history. Recorded meaning they know what actually happened.

But I cannot believe that 2-3 day forecasts are accurate to within 2 degrees. Even the services linked by other commenters criticizing my original point claimed only 77% accuracy in the best case,

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#102

Post by m_fayer »

caseysoftware wrote: post #72
davidw wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be curious to understand why some people seem to be offended by the idea that people cause global warming. I flag all these articles though, because they always end up about politics, given that scientists are mostly in consensus, and very few people here are climate scientists.

Well, if you accept that humans are a major cause of global warming, the equation becomes pretty simple: Limit human behavior or limit the number of humans. Both have scary ramifications.

The idea that limiting human behavior is a scary concept makes no sense to me. We limit human behavior all the time because resources are finite and because the immediate interests of the individual may be detrimental to wider society. It's called rule of law.

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#103

Post by scarmig »

mturmon wrote: post #65
cryptoz wrote: post #36

Climate change is the biggest problem of our time. I wish there were more startups focused on solving it - there are so many opportunities to make money here while improving the world at a global scale. Mitigating the effects of climate change for businesses could easily be worth $1T+. More VCs should pay attention to these opportunities, and more startup founders should enter this space.

Here is a proof of your concept. The Climate Corporation ( https://www.climate.com ) is a SF based company founded in 2006 by two ex-Googlers. Its purpose is to help agriculture adapt to climate change. It was acquired by Monsanto in 2013 for $1.1B. [ETA: I had a feeling you knew this, and indeed while I was writing, you captured this info below as well. Hope your project is going well.]

Another proof of concept: Opower (http://opower.com/careers) is a DC- and SF-based company. It uses behavioral science to drive increases in energy efficiency among consumers, a competency it sells to utilities who use it to meet government EE regulations.

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#104

Post by M00n_Sl47r »

[deleted] wrote: post #90

[deleted]

Dinosaurs weren't wiped out by an ice age. That ice age you refer to is probably "The ice age" of about 10000 years ago (the one humans think of when we say ice age, because we were there as a species), or maybe one of the other four that have occurred since the end of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago as a result of a massive meteor impact.

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#105

Post by pgrote »

stevewepay wrote: post #22
ams6110 wrote: post #3

Since 1880 Edit: I normally don't react to downvotes but this is a direct quote. Larger context: this was also the all-time highest monthly temperature in the 1880–2015 record, at 61.86°F (16.61°C), surpassing the previous record set in 1998 by 0.14°F (0.08°C)

How exactly do they do a fair comparison between 1880 and today? I'm assuming the temperature readings today are very accurate, but how accurate were the measuring devices going back in history, and their standards for taking temperature? Most of the thermometers I have in my house are +- 2F, which would eliminate the differences entirely.

I do not know. I am ignorant of the means in which NASA gathers temperature from the middle of the ocean and presume it is satellite. If that is the case, how was the temperature in the middle of the ocean ascertained in 1880? I would presume they base it on datapoints collected using thermometers by those at sea.

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#106

Post by pgrote »

scarmig wrote: post #51
elektromekatron wrote: post #29

I find it continually amazing how many people find NASA sending rockets into space all the time to be an expected and everyday part of modern life, but then don't trust them with a thermometer.

Temperature measurement is a hard problem, hard enough you could write a PhD on it. Asking questions about methods etc. is entirely acceptable. The issue is when people refuse to recognize that thousands of scientists have made this their career, and thousands of PhDs actually have been written on temperatures past and present, and think that talking heads on Fox News reciting memos paid for by fossil fuel companies…

> Asking questions about methods etc. is entirely acceptable.

I am fascinated by the topic of temperature collection methods through the years. Is there an easily digestible source with explanations?

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#107

Post by jellicle »

jedberg wrote: post #37

Has anyone else noticed that the conservative rhetoric has quietly switched from "global warming doesn't exist so we don't have to do anything" to "global warming isn't caused by people so there is nothing we can do"?

And don't forget "global warming is inevitable now, so there's nothing we can do".

In my experience a good Fox News segment can use all three of these, at the same time, and switch back and forth among them, with no cognitive dissonance apparent. I don't think any of them are really being phased out, it's just that if any particular one is defeated in conversation, the arguer switches to one of the other arguments.

EDIT: Indeed, there are several HN comments in this thread to that effect.

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#108

Post by scarmig »

pgrote wrote: post #106
scarmig wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Temperature measurement is a hard problem, hard enough you could write a PhD on it. Asking questions about methods etc. is entirely acceptable. The issue is when people refuse to recognize that thousands of scientists have made this their career, and thousands of PhDs actually have been written on temperatures past and present, and think that talking heads on Fox News reciting memos paid for by fossil fuel companies…

> Asking questions about methods etc. is entirely acceptable. I am fascinated by the topic of temperature collection methods through the years. Is there an easily digestible source with explanations?

Not that I know of, unfortunately--most of what I know I've gleaned from conversations with a brother who works in the field, and from http://realclimate.org/ , which has some decent technical information for a blog (but unfortunately has declined a bit IMO).

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#109

Post by patrickaljord »

jedberg wrote: post #37

Has anyone else noticed that the conservative rhetoric has quietly switched from "global warming doesn't exist so we don't have to do anything" to "global warming isn't caused by people so there is nothing we can do"?

I don't think it's called global warming anymore, it's called climate change. Besides, I don't understand why it's ok for liberals to make fun of conservatives using "extreme snow" during winter as an argument against climate change but that liberals using exceptional heat during summer as an argument for climate change is ok. A few months of extra cold or heat is not enough to prove or disprove climate change. Last year we had an unusual cold summer, was that proof that climate change is not happening? We already have good scientific ways to measure climate change, let's stick to these (carbon emission etc).

I think we should start focusing on real solutions. Many conservatives are right to underline that simply increasing taxes is not the solution. So what's the solution? Innovation in new source of renewable or less polluting energy technologies. Both liberals and conservatives tend to agree here but they diverge in methodology. Liberals want to heavily tax fossil and subsidize renewable energy. Problem with that is that taxing fossil make life and the economy harder in the meantime and subsidizing often goes to cronies which is bad for innovation. Conservatives prefer having better environment for businesses which will boost innovation. Maybe there's some middle ground in there.

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#110

Post by shanusmagnus »

rnovak wrote: post #66
BillTheCat wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By "horribly inaccurate" do you mean 3 degrees Celsius off or 20 degrees Celsius off? These aftcasts are accurate enough for us to plot the overall course of global climate change.

I mean turning on the "weather channel" and having it say it's sunny out, only to look outside to see pouring rain across the entire city. That's pretty inaccurate in my book.

Where in god's name do you live where the distinction between sun and rain is beyond the skill of your weather people?
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